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Poker for dummies This war business gets no easier to understand. Asked about a second UN resolution at the Azores press conference, George "A Metaphor For Every Occasion" Bush replied: "I was the guy that said they ought to vote. And one country voted - at least showed their cards, I believe. It's an old Texas expression, show your cards, when you're playing poker. France showed their cards. After I said what I said, they said they were going to veto anything that held Saddam to account. So cards have been played. And we'll just have to take an assessment after tomorrow to determine what that card meant."

It is quite difficult to convey, in normal English, what a spectacularly meaningless statement this is. "Showing your cards" is not an old Texas expression. It's barely even an expression. Poker is a game riddled with complex terminology - but in a language of straights, flushes, hooks, bullets, big slicks and Broadways, showing your cards is entirely un-figurative. It simply means showing your cards. And it means the same thing all over the world. Lovely to see George trying to charm the Azorean press corps with his down-home Southern touch, but you might just as well say, "There's an old Texas expression: 'Good Morning'." For most of a poker game, cards are hidden. That is the point. Players use hidden cards to bluff, to bet, to manoeuvre and to bamboozle. When all that's finished, everybody shows their cards, and the highest wins. That's it. You can't go anywhere after that. You most certainly can't "take an assessment after tomorrow to determine what that card meant". That's just the last desperate struggle of the sore loser.

Having an argument after the cards have been shown is terribly bad form. You can be thrown out of a casino for that sort of thing. If Bush were really at a poker game, he should pat the table, say: "Well done, good luck," get up and walk away. Unfortunately, it seems he is still trying to win a finished hand - fine, but let's not pretend he's playing by the rules.

Perhaps what he should have said, and this would certainly have appealed to his folksy cowboy fans back in Lubbock, is: "I'm playing poker Western-style. Like the old days in the saloon. The cards have been shown, I don't like the result, so I'm getting out my gun." Victoria Coren

Gardener's question time

Keeping the weed up So you want to grow your own pot. The rather astonishing news that most of the marijuana now consumed in England and Wales is actually grown here raises the possibility that the UK could become 100% pot self-sufficient in a few years, perhaps even a net exporter, but how does the beginner get started? Is it as easy as it sounds?

Internet advice on cannabis cultivation is the sort of thing one might expect from a loose-knit group of well-intentioned potheads: there are a number of sites which have been "under construction" since the late 1990s, as well as dozens more, such as the promising-sounding Dave's World of Ganja, which are no longer available. From this alone, one might surmise that growing your own pot can't be too demanding, or else devotees would never get round to it, but in fact the process is far from simple.

Cannabis is a tropical plant. In the UK it needs to be grown in a sheltered, sunny position, better still a greenhouse, or better still indoors under lights. The latter has obvious advantages if one wishes to harvest discreetly, away from the prying eyes of those who would wish to remind one that the cultivation of cannabis is an offence under section six of the UK Drugs Act 1971.

It is said, more for educational purposes than for anything else, that a space the size of a wardrobe will yield enough pot for personal use.

The seeds themselves are easy enough to come by. It is only illegal to germinate them, and lots of companies offer seed from Dutch commercial breeders, "sold as souvenirs only", for about £10 for 10. Northern Lights, described as "the Queen of stabilised hybrids" with a high that is at once "narcotic" and "quite cerebral" is one of the more popular varieties available. Others include Shiva, New Power Plant ("giggly, uplifting") and Super Skunk.

A basic lighting rig can be had for about £125. A complete "hydrostation" - lights, hydroponic trays, pump, tank, fertilisers - costing £260 from Basement Lighting, will suffice for 10 to 12 plants. You'll also need an extractor fan for ventilation. Plants require 18 hours of light per day to start off with, and take seven to eight weeks to reach maturity. After that the amount of light must be reduced to trigger flowering. Male plants should be removed as soon as they are identified. As if this weren't enough, cannabis is susceptible to grey mould, spider mites, whitefly and aphids. Someone called Sensi Sid recommends controlling aphids with a solution of water and liquid soap, but be warned: it is illegal to make your own pesticides. Tim Dowling

Lookalikes

Tony Blair, aka Jack Bauer "Right now, a Middle Eastern dictator is hoarding weapons of mass destruction, the UN is refusing to back military intervention, and the people I work with may be about to resign. I'm Prime Minister Tony Blair, and today is the longest day of my life."

You'd be forgiven for thinking Blair's 24-hour ultimatum seemed a little familiar, or that you'd seen the prime minister's leathery look of desperation somewhere before. That's because in recent weeks, the life of Tony Blair has increasingly come to echo BBC2's cult series 24, in which Kiefer Sutherland stars as Federal Agent Jack Bauer, with just 24 sleepless hours to counteract an evil terrorist organisation hell-bent on assassinating senators and planting nuclear bombs in downtown LA. The rotters.

As we slide swiftly into war, it would not be inconceivable that the nation's leader might choose to model himself on, perchance, 24's President David Palmer, smooth and millpondish beneath his quality serge suit. But no, of late, Tony has seemingly been respun as some renegade Jack figure in chinos, widow-peaked and damp of brow, working "flat out" to rescue the world from the grizzly paws of terrorism. Truly, we should not be surprised if he next turns up in a tattered flak jacket and performs a commando roll across the floor of the Commons.

Jack, you see, is characterised by his "reckless" attitude: He doesn't play by the rules, spring-vaulting regulations in pursuit of all that is good and right, much as Tony is prepared to sidestep the UN, on a hunch about that anthrax business. Or ignore the 160 members of his own party threatening to vote against him in parliament, and the one and a half million anti-war protesters huddled in Hyde Park, because they don't know what he knows, they don't have access to all the information. Sure, all around him may think he has lost the plot, but he is certain, come the denouement, he will be proved undeniably right.

Conclusive proof, should we need it, came at 10pm last Sunday night when Clare Short appeared on Radio 4's The Westminster Hour. Blair, we were told, was far too busy speaking on the telephone to another "world leader"; he certainly didn't have time to be listening to Short on the radio. Ah, poppycock. Could it be that Blair was in fact hunched before his television set? After all, at 10pm on a Sunday night, 24 is on BBC2. And we wouldn't want to miss that. Laura Barton

Transport

All aboard the party line There is a certain etiquette to travelling on the tube, by which all passengers are expected to abide. There should be no eye contact; no surreptitious reading of your neighbour's paper; no talking to strangers, and certainly no pre-arranged partying.

So what to make of crowds on the Circle line on Friday night, when around 300 people hijacked a tube with ghetto-blasters, fancy dress costumes and alcohol, and had a non-stop party within its carriages?

A group of 12 people called the Space Hijackers had emailed friends and websites about their plan. By 7.30pm on Friday night, the meeting point at Spitalfields market was full of eager partygoers, among them wearers of Spiderman lycra suits, porn-star wigs and sexy glittery outfits.

"If anyone asks, nobody's in charge. We all just happened to be on the tube at the same time," is the official line.

Unofficially, Alex, one of the hijackers explains: "It's about changing the use of space and having a really good time. It's also because it's such a novel, sneaky and exciting thing to do. Hopefully people at the party will think differently about the underground in the future."

The journey starts at the eastbound platform at Liverpool Street station. Stuart Plowman, the station assistant, seems confused by the sudden crowd. "What's happening?" he asks, when we arrive. "It was all quiet a minute ago and then all of a sudden it's 'whooosh'."

A cheer greets the arrival of the party venue and everyone piles on. Soon the carriages are replete with glitter balls, streamers and silly string. Red Cellophane is taped to the strip lights and a samba band starts playing in the last carriage. Beers, sweets, crisps and dips are handed around and before long people are doing the conga down the carriages.

"The people on the trains are your friends," we have been told. "Give them sweets and drinks. It's their party as well."

The lesson learned is not to judge a commuter by his appearance. I was convinced a grey-haired man would react badly to our sudden noisy arrival. By Mansion House he is happily downing tequila and asking, "Do you do this every Friday?"

A Dutch tourist can't understand why we complain about our public transport system. "This is really quite OK," he says.

Later, one suited man rather tetchily asks, "Do you lot think this is funny?" But that may be because someone was trying to stick Cellophane to his bald head.

At Victoria officials look on, bemused at the noise and the number of passengers dashing between carriages, but do nothing. But at 10pm, on maybe our third or fourth lap, the train stops at Baker Street where the British transport police are waiting. Their response? "It's just a load of people having a good time," says one. "The Cellophane on the lights is a fire hazard but as long as that's taken down London Underground is happy for it to continue."

Which it does, with dwindling numbers, until the tube closes. The only complaint from partygoers being that on the Circle line, there is nowhere to go to the loo. Merope Mills